Telus to track Medical histories

According to Telus' research, 55 per cent of Canadians track their medical history on paper, one third electronically and one in four by memory.

This survey findings explain why Telus Corp. announced today that it will invest $100 million over three years to develop a new health technology division to build and service networks to share medical records and other information.

The move by Telus's business solutions unit comes in the wake of the telecom company's purchase of Montreal-based electronic commerce firm Emergis Inc. early this year. Emergis is a major provider of software used to manage health care records, drug bills and other information in the pharmacy and broader health care industry. It's also a big player in financial services technology.

With its $763 million purchase of Emergis, Telus is moving aggressively to become a bigger player in health care technology and sees this as a major growth area for the company as provincial governments try to get health care costs under control and look for new ways to handle health services.

Like other phone companies, Telus faces stiffer competition from new wireless rivals in Canada and continued decline of traditional businesses. As part of its new investment in healthcare technology, Telus launched a new brand, Telus Health Solutions, a unit with about 1,500 employees.